Predator PH315-52-78VL Can't add a 2nd NVME drive (1TB Adata XPG) - Windows 10 won't boot

Hey all,

I have the Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-52-78VL, which has a 256GB NVME m.2 SSD already. I bought a ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB 3D NAND NVMe Gen3x4 PCIe M.2 2280 Solid State Drive and installed it into the additional m.2 slot, but now Windows 10 will not boot. I get stuck at the loading dots screen and Windows 10 never loads, powering down and trying this over and over it won't even boot/enter into Recovery mode. It just takes forever and gets nowhere. When trying to enter recovery mode I eventually get a Blue screen (BSOD) that says DRIVER_PNP_WATCHDOG. I've re-seated it into the motherboard, added the "heat sink" as well in case there was some kind of short going on (I don't know). I've also used a Windows 10 installation DVD and booted from the DVD drive, but it doesn't get anywhere if that 2nd NVME drive is installed.

When I remove the drive, Windows 10 boots up in less than 5 seconds and has zero problems. I can also get into Recovery mode when it isn't hooked up. Since I was able to get into Windows 10 again I made sure to update the BIOS to v1.04 and tried to install the NVME drive again with no luck.

If I go into the Bios (F2) when it's hooked up, I see the hard drive is recognized there, but I still can't get Windows 10 to load. Has anyone run into this?

I just really doubt my NVME drive is garbage, it has a 5 year warranty, but that's my only thoughts now. Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!

Accepted answers

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brummyfan2

Hi,
You could try going to BIOS and change SATA mode to AHCI from "RST Premium with Optane". Go to Main tab in the BIOS screen change and see whether it helps.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/0z/e2x1a0zfl5e3.jpg

skelman

I'll open it up, put the drive back in and give it a try once my Windows updates are done. Thanks.

skelman

This got me a bit further, thanks. Now things don't just hang forever at the loading dots. I was able to get into Recovery mode with the drive installed now too, but didn't want to screw up my Windows 10 since I knew I could take out the drive and get it to work.

With the drive installed, Windows 10 still does not load, but now I get a BSOD that says INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE. It's like when I install this drive it tries to boot from it or something and forgets how to work with the old drive. The new drive shows up in BIOS under HDD0.

Any other thoughts or ideas?

XdxD

skelman said:

This got me a bit further, thanks. Now things don't just hang forever at the loading dots. I was able to get into Recovery mode with the drive installed now too, but didn't want to screw up my Windows 10 since I knew I could take out the drive and get it to work.

With the drive installed, Windows 10 still does not load, but now I get a BSOD that says INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE. It's like when I install this drive it tries to boot from it or something and forgets how to work with the old drive. The new drive shows up in BIOS under HDD0.

Any other thoughts or ideas?

In boot order, select the bootable drive at 1st and this new drive as 2nd and try.

skelman

I can't really select that anywhere, I haven't seen any boot order selection in my BIOS, v1.04. In my Boot menu in BIOS:

Secure Boot: Enabled
Boot priority order:
1. Windows Boot Manager

That's it. Adding this other NVME drive does not change this boot screen at all.

FYI: After I removed the drive again, I had to change the SATA Mode back to "RST Premium with Optane" to get Windows 10 to boot successfully again. Otherwise I kept getting the Blue Screen/BSOD with INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE.

XdxD

Strange issue.

iroverdude

I'm trying to do the same thing and at the same point. The second NVMe 970Evo Plus Drive appears to function fine and test fine but can't install the samsung driver nor get the samsung magician to recognize it (was hoping to use it to clone the 256mb original NVMe SSD to it). If I change the bios to AHCI it just reboots continually. Restoring the bios to RST Premium with Optane enables windows 10 to launch off the 256mb.

Considering just using the 970Evo as it seems to be working, just not sure if that is a bad idea.

Clientsi

I have the same issue with the same Acer model and same ADATA Drive.

I tried swapping the drive locations as I noticed that HD0 is actually assigned to the originally empty M2 slot, so when you install a second drive it’s listed as that.

I was able to boot to Windows once, but not again. During this boot Disk Manger and other partition software did not recognize a second drive, although it is clearly listed in the BIOS.

The BIOS does not provide any options to choose boot devices as Windows Boot Manager is the only option, even after setting a BIOS password.

Has anyone had success adding a M2 drive to the empty slot? If so, what model of drive did you use? I’m trying to determine if this is a compatibility issue with ACER and ADATA or something else.

Thank you all for your efforts thus far.

GitDat

Same issue for me with 2 different laptops and 2 different ADATA m.2 SSD's. What's worse is I've actually had 3 laptops and identical ADATA SSD's and the first one worked without issue. I'm stumped. Maybe changing the BIOS to AHCI and reinstalling Windows will do it.

I've tried installing the ADATA in the first m.2 slot and this laptop just will not install Windows on it. I'm kind of glad others are experiencing the same thing to prove to myself that I'm not crazy, lol

xapim

Bare in mind that for the drives to appear in the uefi boot manager/windows installation they would probably have to be formatted in to gpt first to get recognized anyway just a hunch also sometimes swapping ports might do the trick and disabling secure boot

Davoncci

Clientsi said:

I have the same issue with the same Acer model and same ADATA Drive.

I tried swapping the drive locations as I noticed that HD0 is actually assigned to the originally empty M2 slot, so when you install a second drive it’s listed as that.

I was able to boot to Windows once, but not again. During this boot Disk Manger and other partition software did not recognize a second drive, although it is clearly listed in the BIOS.

The BIOS does not provide any options to choose boot devices as Windows Boot Manager is the only option, even after setting a BIOS password.

Has anyone had success adding a M2 drive to the empty slot? If so, what model of drive did you use? I’m trying to determine if this is a compatibility issue with ACER and ADATA or something else.

Thank you all for your efforts thus far.

Yes, I currently have an NVME drive installed in the second slot. I don't have the problems you listed above.

SeaHunter

TRY THIS!!!!

I got a helios 315-52 last week and added an 1TB SSD (Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-1TB)) to the empty slot and Windows would start from power up but if you attempted to do a restart it would just hang and screen would stay black.

When ever you add a disk you must view BIOS and then at least save your settings (hit F2 repeatedly after adding disk to get to BIOS)

I looked at BIOS and noticed my new SSD was in slot 1 and the included (windows) SSD was in slot 2 from the factory... I swapped my two SSDs so the windows SSD was in slot 1 and new one in slot 2. ALL SYSTEMS GREEN!!! boot ups and restarts no problem!!

I now have in SSD Slot 1 the included windows SSD, SSD Slot 2 is a 1Tb SSD, and HDD Slot has a Seagate FireCuda 2TB Solid State Hybrid Drive Performance SSHD – 2.5 Inch SATA 6GB/s Flash Accelerated for Gaming PC Laptop - Frustration Free Packaging (ST2000LX001) Now its a kick **** laptop...

On the Seagate I partitioned it to be 1.75TB NTFS and then used the other 250GB to install ubuntu Linux. Hit F12 on powerup (and now restart) and I can select to boot from ubuntu (I default boot to windows)

belik

That’s interesting info, so when you add second ssd it’s better to put new one to the left slot

xapim

belik said:

That’s interesting info, so when you add second ssd it’s better to put new one to the left slot

Exactly what i sated above you could try swapping sata ports sometimes does the trick

hgari

Hi Guys! same problem try add SX8200 Pro.
i switch drives, upgrade firmware, change setup on SATa to AHCI and on boot press alt + F10 y reset laptop erase all files....
and boot with new drive without partitions!!! Aleluya
Regards
Snapshot was after initialize volume...

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/4c/trjhwgszoan2.jpg

SeaHunter

belik said:

That’s interesting info, so when you add second ssd it’s better to put new one to the left slot

Yes that is what made my laptop work!

ScoobyDo

I have had similar issues in the past when installing a new drive. One thing I try to do is keep the drive with the master boot record and windows installation as Disk 0. When booting, Disk 0 is usually the starting point where the BIOS looks for the master boot record (MBR) that contains the loading instructions for windows. If it doesn't find the Windows MBR there (on Disk 0) it may try to load the Disk 0 boot/install information instead of the windows MBR. This can cause the BIOS to assume that there is no bootable OS available because it is looking at an empty disk. The fix for this is to tell the BIOS to load Disk 1 before Disk 0 on startup. That can usually be done in the BIOS boot setting by highlighting Disk 1 and using the F6 button to move it to the top of the list. I'm not sure this is the answer to your issue but I have used this procedure in the past to address similar issues I have encountered. I hope you can get it strait without to much hassle. Good luck.

Zelmel

I have similar issue with my newly bought Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-52 with XPG SX8200Pro 1TB SSD. I tried all the method above and even swap both disk to different slot but once I put in the XPG SSD, the whole laptop just won’t boot up.
Please HELP!!!

Zelmel

skelman said:

Hey all,

I have the Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-52-78VL, which has a 256GB NVME m.2 SSD already. I bought a ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB 3D NAND NVMe Gen3x4 PCIe M.2 2280 Solid State Drive and installed it into the additional m.2 slot, but now Windows 10 will not boot. I get stuck at the loading dots screen and Windows 10 never loads, powering down and trying this over and over it won't even boot/enter into Recovery mode. It just takes forever and gets nowhere. When trying to enter recovery mode I eventually get a Blue screen (BSOD) that says DRIVER_PNP_WATCHDOG. I've re-seated it into the motherboard, added the "heat sink" as well in case there was some kind of short going on (I don't know). I've also used a Windows 10 installation DVD and booted from the DVD drive, but it doesn't get anywhere if that 2nd NVME drive is installed.

When I remove the drive, Windows 10 boots up in less than 5 seconds and has zero problems. I can also get into Recovery mode when it isn't hooked up. Since I was able to get into Windows 10 again I made sure to update the BIOS to v1.04 and tried to install the NVME drive again with no luck.

If I go into the Bios (F2) when it's hooked up, I see the hard drive is recognized there, but I still can't get Windows 10 to load. Has anyone run into this?

I just really doubt my NVME drive is garbage, it has a 5 year warranty, but that's my only thoughts now. Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!

Did your problem solved?

xapim

Zelmel said:

I have similar issue with my newly bought Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-52 with XPG SX8200Pro 1TB SSD. I tried all the method above and even swap both disk to different slot but once I put in the XPG SSD, the whole laptop just won’t boot up.
Please HELP!!!

Have you tried the solutions above ?????

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